Surviving a sex drought How to spice up your marriage without having an affair
As new BBC drama ‘Wanderlust’ shows how a lack of intimacy can drive a couple apart, Lisa Williams says you can recover that loving feeling without resorting to an affair
When you were growing up, do you remember ever wanting to sink without trace between the cushions of your parents’ sofa when anything of an “adult” nature came on to the screen?
I was reminded of this feeling when I watched Wanderlust, the new BBC drama that starts tonight, about a couple with two grown-up children, who find themselves in a sexual rut after years of happy marriage – and turn to other lovers to get them out of it.
The first episode sees Joy (Toni Collette) and husband Alan (Steven Mackintosh) trying and failing to rekindle the fire. The going-slow-inmissionary-position approach doesn’t work for them, but the dressing-up-and-doing-a-striptease one doesn’t either. On the contrary, when they’re with other people, the excitement is palpable.
It made me wonder how many couples might watch these scenes together in stony, awkward silence, avoiding eye contact and dying a bit inside. It may be just too close to home. I co-host a podcast with TV presenter Cherry Healey and writer Anniki Sommerville about sex and relationships called The Hotbed and, in our own survey of parents with children under 15, we found that 77per cent of them were unhappy with their sex lives. Having children is a big strain on a couple’s intimacy – for practical factors such as time, space and tiredness, as well as emotional ones such as low postbirth body confidence – meaning sex takes a back seat.
Sexless relationships are generally defined as those in which couples have sex fewer than 10 times a year. Say this to a room of parents in their 30s and above, however, and they will guffaw and make jokes about that being actually quite a lot, which shows just how common a problem it is.
And the danger of one or both partners having an affair is real.
In a Yougov survey in 2015, one in five British adults admitted to cheating. When we asked our listeners what topics they would like us to cover in the podcast, affairs was the most popular answer, second only to trying-to-conceive sex.
The episode that comes out next month covers not only how to trust someone after they have had an affair, but also how to cope with the overwhelming desire to have one yourself. It is, of course, entirely normal to have fantasies about other people. The Hotbed’s resident clinical psychologist and psychosexologist Dr Karen Gurney, who practices out of The Havelock Clinic in Harley
Street, says that thinking about people other than our partner is a way of us asserting ourselves as a sexual person beyond our coupled-up identity. Neither are open relationships nor sexless relationships a problem, per se, if both partners are consenting and happy with the arrangement.
But if a lack of sex is causing one or both partners to feel depressed, unloved, or distant from each other, then we have a problem. A sexless relationship can also cause some people to feel great shame. It’s not something people like to admit.
Good sex is good for relationships. It can make couples feel closer, give them more energy, and help them care a little less about whose turn it is to sort the recycling. The health benefits of sex are bounteous, too: with plenty of scientific evidence to show it can reduce stress levels, premature ageing, incontinence and osteoporosis, among other things. Sex is not just about procreation.
The other good news is that recovering from a barren period doesn’t have to mean trussing yourself up into a French maid’s outfit – or involving a third party.
Our advice is always to start small. Instead of focusing on having a lot of very good sex immediately, or attempting to end the drought with a grand gesture such as a PVC catsuit or expensive weekend away, think of the situation as you might the beginning of a relationship: flirt again. Pay each other a compliment. Do something sweet and considerate for the other person, even if it’s as small as sorting out the bins when it’s not your turn. Offer them a little back rub if they have had a long day, or ask for one yourself. In this way, you can build up in gentle increments, allowing you both time to re-adjust to previous levels of intimacy, while simultaneously reducing the chance of being rejected.
Dr Gurney talks about “sexual currency”, which she defines as actions you wouldn’t do with a friend: holding hands, kissing on the escalator, spooning on the sofa. She advises her couples to build up their sexual currency (with no pressure to have sex), and says desire will follow.
A big misconception is that women should, like the majority of men, get turned on spontaneously, and then want to have sex.
But when they don’t feel an urge to have sex just like that, women can worry that they have lost their sex drive when, in fact, it could just be that there isn’t enough to trigger their sexual appetite. Talking also helps, but the problem with most Brits is that we’re often as bad at communicating as we are at being open about sex. The key here is to pick your moment.
Direct eye contact can hinder open conversation, so choose a moment when you can be beside your other half rather than opposite them: think a riverside walk or long car journey rather than table-for-two. It also helps if one of you isn’t wearing nipple tassels. When you’re confronting a sex drought, it’s easy to lay all the blame on one person but pointing the finger doesn’t often work as well as foreplay (excuse the pun). Rather, it is better to start your sentences with “we” or “I” rather than “you”. Compare, “I miss kissing you”, with “You don’t kiss me any more”, which will elicit a more defensive reaction.
In Wanderlust, Alan and Joy’s first conversation about their non-existent sex life is a lesson in how not to do it: they’re facing each other in bed, the lights are on, they criticise and blame each other, and get nowhere. The irony here is that Joy is a couples’ therapist.
Professional help is always available. As well as seeing patients at her clinic, Dr Gurney runs an online desire workshop. Relate offers telephone and webcam counselling as well as face-to-face sessions, and the charity is keen to emphasise that couples can always seek help before things get really bad, as well as when they do. It is also possible to see a counsellor by yourself if need be. Sex droughts don’t need to last forever, no matter how British, reserved or sad you feel.
We often have people contacting us to say it just took one little change or gesture (buying some lube, sending a sexy text) to change the direction of their sex life from Joy and Alan’s awkward tryst to something more akin to what you would have hated to watch on screen with your parents.
Start small, instead of attempting a grand gesture such as a PVC catsuit